


Things You Said After You Kissed Me

by phoenixyfriend



Series: Blame Tumblr Prompts [4]
Category: Young Avengers
Genre: F/M, Past Sexual Assault, Past Torture, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-15
Updated: 2015-04-15
Packaged: 2018-03-23 02:47:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3751603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixyfriend/pseuds/phoenixyfriend
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The nightmares don't ever fully go away. Sometimes they subside, maybe even for a few months or years, but they always come back.</p><p>They <i>always</i> come back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things You Said After You Kissed Me

**Author's Note:**

> This work contains mentions of past sexual assault and past torture, discussed by characters who have undergone them. Please do not read this work if you are triggered by mentions of such.

They share a bed, here on the spaceship. It’s partly due to the relationship, and partly due to the size constraints of the ship. There are only so many rooms on an exploratory vessel, and they got lucky that there were two couples willing to share.

In any case, the situation means that Kate and Noh are sharing a room, and in turn, sharing a bed. Kate asked, once, if it was Noh-Varr’s parent’s bed, back before the incident that led to their deaths. It wasn’t.

(That one had been given to Teddy and Billy.)

So when nights pass, Kate and Noh are curled up on the bed, her back to his chest and his arm around her waist, and it’s all horridly domestic, but she thinks she could get used to it, someday. She already mostly is.

Of course, the domesticity is marred by both their nightmares. Noh-Varr had to kill a murderous simulacrum of his own father, a father he’d seen die, and fought the same false mimicry of his mother, which would be enough to give anyone nightmares. And Kate…

Before, she’d always had ample warning before having to go back to Central Park, enough time to build up a wall inside herself and make sure she didn’t react in a way anyone would find suspicious, and had even grown beyond the reactions she’d once been prone to, and now…

It had been dark. It had been dark and it had been sudden and it hadn’t been the same part of the park, but it had been enough to bring the nightmares back. Enough that some nights she found herself waking up to her own desperate struggles to get away from Noh-Varr, who, thankfully, let her go as soon as he woke up and realized what was going on.

Of course, when she full woke up, when she calmed down her heart rate and managed to remind her body and brain that this wasn’t the park, that she was completely in control of the relationship, that Noh-Varr wasn’t that man… She needed support. Kate wasn’t too proud to admit that. Not when her… boyfriend? Partner? Her current paramour needed much the same almost as often as she did.

“Kate? Are you alright? Do I need to get you anything?” The concern in his voice is genuine, but it isn’t pitying, and she’s thankful for that. He knows what she’s going through, if for different reasons. Torture left a mark just as much as… well. It left a mark.

“I’m fine, I think. Just… just the usual.” She climbs back into bed and, after a moment of hesitation to gauge whether she’s ready for it, she cuddles up against Noh-Varr again. His arms are warm and solid as he pulls her against him, and she splays her hands against his chest, feeling two hearts beating and using it to solidify herself in the present, to prevent herself from falling into flashbacks and nightmares once more.

She doesn’t apologize. There’s nothing to apologize for.

Kate closes her eyes as she feels Noh’s lips on her forehead. She tilts her head up when he pulls back, and his lips find their way to hers. The pressure is soft, dry, and warm, which is really what she needs right now. They have their nights of passion, yes, but they also have these nights. Nights of both terror and comfort.

She pulls her head back down and nestles it under his chin. “Thanks.”

For putting up with this. The unspoken words float between them, unneeded in one sense but so very necessary in so many others.

“There is nothing to thank me for.”

 “I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> Ahahahaha. I can't ever really write happy things for this ship, can I?


End file.
